Alibag- The emerging suburb of Mumbai

Alibag, the southernmost tip of MMR(Mumbai Metropolitan Region) located on the coastal belt of Maharashtra, is amongst the most preferred weekend destination for metros neighboring it specially Mumbai. Literally, at present it can be called a town as per the norms in our country. As per the western terminology, its still equivalent to a village. Over the years, Alibag has established itself as one of the popular tourist places in Maharashtra mainly because of strategic key location. Besides this, it offers lot of scenic, historical and cultural picnic spots.

Long ago, it was an isolated cluster of small villages. Due to improvement in road linkages and its proximity to Mumbai it was one of the chosen areas for industrial and tourist development. One can view companies like ISPAT,GAIL,RPCL located nearby the town. The industrial development in some cases like RCF faced strong opposition from the local people. However, it is due to such projects that residential complexes and colonies grew.

There are many points of attraction that includes but not limited to beaches such as Alibag beach, Nagaon,Kashid,Akshi etc., forts like Kulaba fort, Janjira fort at Murud(both being sea forts), Sagargad, Revdanda fort, Alibag fort(now a jail) and temples.

At present there are MSRTC operated buses to other cities. Bus frequency to towns like Panvel, Roha, Murud is much more margin being mere 15-30 min/trip. Bus services are improving a lot over the years owing to the appreciable increase in passenger traffic and absence of rail route. Nearest major rail station is Panvel(60 kms) and Lonavala(80 kms) at present. Tourists can hire private cabs\buses for sight-seeing. Currently there are no private bus routing other cities. Also there is ferry passenger service from Mandwa to Gateway of India(Colaba area, Mumbai). Catamaran operators like Ajanta ,Maldar, PNP maritime services provide bus service from Alibag to Mandwa jetty from where one can board the ferry. Thus one can reach Gateway within two hours.

The development plan to improve the connectivity with neighbouring metros Pune and Mumbai is on the way. The Maharashtra budget presented recently gave a boost to the much delayed water transport plan for the western and eastern coasts. The eastern coast plan includes a roll-on /roll-off ferry service for passengers and vehicles will be operated from Ferry Wharf aka “Bhaucha Dhakka” to Mandwa and to Nerul. The project is expected to be completed by June 2014. The suburban train services connecting Pen, Panvel and in turn, Mumbai are expected to start in next 3-4 years. As of now, there exists a single rail track up to Thal where RCF is situated which is 5 kms from Alibag. It’s used for freight traffic. The mega-plan also includes construction of Virar-Thane-Panvel-Alibag Multimodal corridor (shown below in fig-1) expected to be complete by 2022.

The Navi Mumbai International airport and Navi Mumbai SEZ further adds to the factor contributing Alibag’s progress.

Fig-1: Virar-Alibag corridor proposed plan

The Khopoli –Lonavala tunnel on expressway is also in planning process which on completion would reduce the current Alibag to Pune travel time by half an hour from 2.5 hours to 2 hours by car.

Fig-2: Proposed Khopoli-Lonavala tunnel

Looking at these proposed infrastructural growth, this fabulous place which is already a popular Second- home destination is now attracting the residential projects ranging from 1BHK houses to villas from reputed builders like Dishadirect . Being in a win-win situation, now the time has come for investors to invest in and around Alibag. The rates at present are still moderate and within budget of middle-income group and its right time to invest here now. So the next time you think of investment in real estate, do keep Alibag as one of the options depending on your convenience. In upcoming years, it would serve the enormous working population working in MMR region thereby taking off some load from Mumbai and its suburbs and also give the fresh, tranquil and pleasant atmosphere that one longs for after day at work.

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